This is a capture of mobile screen during the performance. The Chinese sentence above the QR code means, "Please scan this QR code to join the performance!"

1,000,000,000 mobile universes

Category: Performance, video, sound art, interactive art

Concept and Director：Tan Tan

Artist: Tan Tan, Eric Bribosia

Cooperative artists: artist group “Poor CD Band”

Production year: 2015

The premiere of this performance was implemented at the opening of “DM@CC——2015 Wuhan Digital Art Invitational Exhibition” in Wuhan Art Museum.

The two third of the performance took place on the big screen in the hall and the mobiles of the performers and the audience. The performance doesn’t exist only if the audience participate fully during the whole process, thus the audience are performers as well!

Scanning the QR codes is the core method of interaction between the performers and the audience. During the most time of the show, the audience could only see the work on their mobiles after scanning the codes. For instance, they could enter a “channel”and a “Chatting group” built by Tan Tan in the APP“WeChat”, which is the “top one” communicating application for Chinese people. While in the “channel” named “Where is China”, they could see a number of images and videos representing the impression of “Chinese culture” from people throughout China. In the “Chatting group”, they saw the members of “Poor CD Band”that were hiding in many corners of the Museum. They chatted with all the “performers” including Tan Tan and Eric Bribosia, they even could get some money as gifts, as well as posting some advertisements… At the last stage of this show, TanBo and “Poor CD Band”made a “sacrificial ritual”for the mobiles from them and the audience.

Watch the fragments of the performance ----

Every mobile phone is like a “small world”, which incorporates into a “1,000,000,000 universes”, which is a Buddhist saying, with the network of numerous mobiles. TanBo just hopes to open one of the doors to the“1,000,000,000 mobile universes” ...

The audience are scanning theQR code to join the "group chatting"

The performance took place in the hall of Wuhan Art Museum.

The first section of the performance: after entering a "chatting group" on "Wechat", the audience saw the performers(from Poor CD Band) were hiding in many corners of the Museum, they told them by text and voice "we are performing, you are also performing".

The first section of the performance: besides the QR code connected to the chatting group, there were other QR codes leading the audience into the “channel” of “Where is China”, where they could see expressions of “Chinese culture” from people throughout China.

The second section of the performance: the performers walked into the audience in a ritual-like way,and then they only ask the audience to scan the QR codes on their mobiles without any speaking words. The QR codes linked with their self-introductions, marriage-seeking advertisements, online shops, and some informations from TanBo, etc.

Throughout the first and second section of the performance of 40 min, Poor CD band and TanBo chatted a lot with the audience, and they even sent some money as gifts. They told people again and again, "we are performing, you are also performing", meanwhile asked them, "Where is China? "

The third section of the performance: in the last 20 min of the performance, Tan Tan and Eric Bribosia asked people to put down their mobiles, and ended the "party of mobiles" by a psychedelic video made of QR code. Then, they "robbed" people's mobiles with Poor CD band, and turned them off, put them with some "paper IPHONEs" on the floor in a shape of a cross! Lastly, the performance went to an ending with a tribal ritual around the "mobile cross".